K progress

K is potty-trained! He still needs diapers for naps and bedtime, but other than that, it's all underpants, all the time. Hooray! The other day I caught myself sighing because I had to clean the potty, and then I realized, what am I thinking? What would I rather be wiping, a piece of plastic or somebody's butt? Next step: get him to go on the big potty.

I've been trying to teach K to stand up for himself more. Yesterday a boy at the playground kept running at him and screaming. At first K responded by laughing and running away, so I thought he was okay. But after the sixth or seventh time, when the boy ran at him and screamed, K burst into tears. Once he calmed down, I said, "Did it scare you when that boy screamed?" He nodded, sniffling. "Is there anything you could do that might help?" "Cry?" "Crying won't help you. But what if you tell him to stop screaming?" K wasn't feeling brave enough to do this himself, so we marched up to the boy together and said, "Please don't scream."  (It didn't really matter. The boy's mom screamed at him just as loudly and told him he was like a wild animal and couldn't behave and was scaring all the kids, and then dragged him off the playground. Suddenly it all made sense.)

Today at the playground, a big kid got on the seesaw opposite K and started bouncing up and down really hard. I could see K starting to look scared, but I didn't do anything (well, until one of the boys started hitting another boy, but that had nothing to do with K, that was just me interfering). The kid on the seesaw eventually got distracted by his friends and left. I talked to K again about speaking up and telling people if something was wrong. I reminded him that they didn't know if he was feeling scared or upset, and they wouldn't stop unless he told them to.

I hope it sinks in. I love how caring and polite K is, but I think we need to toughen him up a little. Right now, if he falls down, he gets right back up. But if someone pushes him down, he cries. It's hard for him to imagine that someone would be mean to him on purpose. Which is nice in a way, but won't get him very far on the playground.